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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump nominates climate science deniers and fossil fuel profiteers to head key federal agencies; Winters are warming up quickly across the U.S.; PLUS: President Biden offers hope for climate action, the first U.S. President ever to visit the Amazon Rainforest... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The climate fight will continue; Trump might nix America as a climate tech leader. 5 charts show China winning that race; Weather extremes influence illegal migration and return between the U.S. and Mexico, study finds; Why hydropower is failing in Zambia --- and could fail others; To protect the ozone layer and slow global warming, fertilizers must be deployed more efficently, UN says... PLUS: EPA in Elon Musk's crosshairs... and much, MUCH more! ...

STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...

• Global CO2 emissions on track to hit new record in 2024:
• Analysis: Global CO2 emissions will reach new high in 2024 despite slower growth (Carbon Brief):
  
  But a flattening of emissions is far from what is needed to bring global emissions down to zero and stabilise global temperatures in-line with Paris Agreement goals.
• Amid Earth's heat records, scientists report another bump upward in annual carbon emissions (AP)
• Global carbon emissions inch upwards in 2024 despite progress on EVs, renewables and deforestation (Phys.Org/MSN):
  
  In 2023, the carbon uptake on land dropped 28% from the decadal average. Global record temperatures, drought in the Amazon and unprecedented wildfires in the forests of Canada were to blame, along with an El Niño event.
• World on track for hottest year ever as carbon pollution hits record levels (Yale Climate Connections)
• Winters are warming up quickly the U.S.:
• Our winters are warming faster than our summers (Axios):
  
  Warm winters can exacerbate drought (because there's less snowmelt in the spring), wreak havoc on crops and gardens, and spell disaster for towns built around skiing, snowboarding, and similar pursuits.
• VIDEO: Winter Is The Fastest-Warming Season In Most Of US, Updated Analysis Finds (Weather Channel)
• Trump nominates climate science denier Energy Secretary:
• Donald Trump’s pick for energy secretary says ‘there is no climate crisis’ (The Verge)
• What to know about Chris Wright, Trump's choice to run the Energy Department (ABC News)
• Chris Wright, Trump's pick for energy secretary, is wrong about green energy, experts say (ABC News)
• AUDIO: Trump taps oil executive Chris Wright as Secretary of Energy (NPR):
  
  CHRIS WRIGHT: There is no climate crisis, and we're not in the midst of an energy transition either. SIMON: That's Wright in a video he uploaded to LinkedIn last year: WRIGHT: We have seen no increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts or floods, despite endless fearmongering of the media, politicians and activists.
• VIDEO: Trump Picks Climate-Denying Oil & Gas Magnate as Energy Sec. He Once Drank Fracking Fluid on Live TV (Democracy Now):
  
  There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition, either. Humans and all complex life on Earth is simply impossible without carbon dioxide, hence the term "carbon pollution" is outrageous. … There is no such thing as clean energy or dirty energy. … These five terms — "climate crisis," "energy transition," "carbon pollution," "clean energy" and "dirty energy" — are not only deceptive, they are in fact destructive deceptions.
• Trump nominates ND Gov. Burgum for Interior Secretary:
• What to know about Doug Burgum, Trump's Interior secretary pick (Axios)
• Trump picks North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to lead the Interior Department (NPR):
  
  Interior is a sprawling department responsible for managing 20% of U.S. surface land, as well as federally owned mineral rights. This gives Interior control over nearly a quarter of all energy development in America, on- and off-shore...The Trump administration is expected to reverse President Biden's focus on conservation and renewable energy policy enacted by current Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, the nation's first Indigenous Cabinet member.
• Trump taps North Dakota Gov. Burgum to lead Interior Department (Washington Post):
  
  Burgum’s outlook on climate policy does not align neatly with that of the president-elect. Burgum has said he believes human-caused climate change is real, and he has supported some of the clean-energy subsidies Trump is seeking to jettison.
• Oil Industry Asks Trump to Repeal Major Climate Policies (Inside Climate News)
• How will offshore wind fare under a second Trump term? (Canary Media)
• What does Secretary of the Interior do? A look at the department after Trump taps Burgum (USA Today/MSN)
• 'Drill, drill, drill': New energy council signals Trump to prioritize energy production (Tucson Sentinel)
• Trump nominates Fox News TV host to head Transportation Department:
• Trump says he is naming former Wisconsin Rep. Sean Duffy to be transportation secretary (AP):
  
  Duffy is a former reality TV star who was one of Trump’s most visible defenders on cable news — a prime concern for the media-focused president-elect.
• Trump taps Sean Duffy, Fox host and former congressman, for transportation secretary (NPR):
  
  Under the current Secretary Pete Buttigieg, the department has handed out billions of dollars in funding from the bipartisan infrastructure law to build roads and bridges, dig tunnels, modernize airports and more. Buttigieg has also pursued an ambitious agenda aimed at protecting the consumer rights of air travelers, despite some pushback from airlines. And he's touted efforts to make the nation's roads safer for pedestrians and other vulnerable users. The future of those initiatives is now in question.
• Biden announces investments in reforestation, in first-ever presidential visit to Amazon Rainforest:
• Joe Biden announces major climate initiatives from Amazon rainforest, says 'protecting planet a fight for humanity' (Times of India)
• Biden visits Amazon rainforest en route to G20 summit in Rio (Reuters)
• VIDEO: Biden delivers remarks after making historic visit to Amazon rainforest in Brazil (AP):
  
  Joe Biden witnessed the devastation of drought up close as the first sitting American president to visit the Amazon rainforest Sunday, declaring that nobody can reverse "the clean energy revolution that's underway in America" even as the incoming Trump administration is poised to scale back efforts to combat climate change.
• FACT SHEET: President Biden Marks Historic Climate Legacy with Trip to Brazil's Amazon Rainforest (US Embassy in Brazil)
• Fact Check: Video Does Not Show Biden Wandering Off into Amazon Rainforest (Snopes):
  
  Online users and some journalists published misinformation about a video-recorded moment from Biden's visit to the Amazon rainforest in November 2024.
• Amazon: Who should pay for its protection? (Deutsche Welle)

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

For a comprehensive roundup of daily environmental news you can trust, see the Society of Environmental Journalists' Daily Headlines page

• The Climate Fight Will Continue (This Is Not Cool blog)
• Trump might nix America as a climate tech leader. 5 charts show China winning that race (CNN)
• Weather extremes influence illegal migration and return between the U.S. and Mexico, study finds (AP)
• Why hydropower is failing this nation — and could fail others (Washington Post)
• Decreasing confidence that a significant La Nina even will ever unfold over the Pacific (Fox Weather)
• COP29: US Diplomats Notch a Win on Climate Super Pollutants With Help From the Private Sector (Inside Climate News)
• To protect the ozone layer and slow global warming, fertilizers must be deployed more efficently, UN says (Inside Climate News)
• Emergency declared as smog chokes parts of India and Pakistan (NY Times)
• 'Greenwashing banks raised 1 trillion dollars for fossil fuel giants (Bureau of Investigative Journalism)
• EPA in Elon Musk's crosshairs (E&E News)
• Who Will Care for Americans Left Behind by Climate Migration? (Pro Publica)
• America's Climate and Economy Are on the Ballot (The American Prospect)
• How to power your home through an outage without a gas generator (Washington Post)
• VIDEO: John Oliver on Trump's Project 2025: Blueprint for the Death of Democracy (This Is Not Cool blog)
• Is the Atlantic Overturning Circulation Approaching a Tipping Point? (The Oceanography Society)
• How Oil Companies Manipulate Journalists (Drilled)
• Abrupt reduction in shipping emission as an inadvertent geoengineering termination shock produces substantial radiative warming (Nature)
• How To Spot 5 Of The Fossil Fuel Industry's Biggest Disinformation Tactics (Guardian)
• The Oceans We Knew Are Already Gone (The Atlantic)
• Plug-in hybrids vs. electric cars: We did the math on which is better for you (Washington Post)
• How to electrify your life when you rent (The Verge)
• Complete Series: Farmers Under Attack for Supporting Clean Energy (This Is Not Cool blog)
• Feeling Overwhelmed About Going All-Electric at Home? Here's How to Get Started (Inside Climate News)
• Feeling Hopeless About the Climate? Try Our 30-Day Action Plan (The Revelator)
• Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration (Pro Publica)
• Exxon's Snake Oil: 100 years of deception (Columbia Journalism Review)
• Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Drawdown.org)

The flood of wholly-unqualified appointments to cabinet level posts and other top appointments, since Donald Trump barely won a plurality (not a majority) of the national popular vote two weeks ago, continues. You're probably well familiar by now with the nominations of alleged child sex trafficker Rep. Matt Gaetz for U.S. Attorney General, the nation's top law enforcement official, and of Fox "News" weekend host Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary.

Neither have any experience leading huge organizations (or even medium-sized ones) with millions of employees --- or even any experience at all at the organizations they have been tapped by Trump to lead. And Hegseth, who was disqualified from serving in the National Guard during Joe Biden's 2021 inauguration as a potential "insider threat" due to his White Supremacist tattoos, was also revealed over the weekend by Washington Post to have paid off a woman to settle her accusations of sexual assault. He reportedly denies the rape allegation, if not the settlement.

The Trump Transition team claims they knew nothing about any of it when they selected Hegseth to head DoD. That should give you chills. Perhaps that's because the Transition team hired a private firm to vet Trump's nominees, rather than rely on the FBI, as they would be doing, had Trump complied with the bipartisan amendment to the Presidential Transition Act that he himself signed into law during his first term.

The measure also requires Presidential candidates to sign agreements with the White House and General Services Administration by October 1 before an election to begin the transition process with a publicly disclosed ethics policy and a public statement of how the future President plans to avoid conflicts of interest while serving, if elected. It allows for FBI vetting of incoming officials to grant access to classified documents and other material from the previous Administration at the nation's 438 Executive Branch agencies that they will control. Signing the agreement, as required by law, also includes a vow that Transition teams may take no more than $5,000 from any one person for certain transition costs, and that they will publicly disclose the names of those donors, among other things.

Donald Trump has, so far, refused to sign any of those agreements, alarming ethics, national security and legal experts as he begins defying federal law (again) even before taking office for a second term as President.

Joining us to explain the national security and other serious consequences and ramifications of all of this is LISA GRAVES. She is uniquely qualified to discuss these issues, given her service in all three branches of the federal government, as a Former Deputy Asst. Attorney General at the U.S. Justice Dept.; former Chief Counsel for nominations in the U.S. Senate; and former Deputy Chief for the Article III Judges Div. of the U.S. Court system. She now heads up the government watchdog and political research organization, True North Research.

We've got a lot to discuss with Graves today, beginning with what alarms her most about Trump's refusal to sign the Presidential Transition Act agreements. She identifies the avoidance of the FBI background investigation process as a "huge red warning flag."

"He does not want his cabinet appointees to go through the regular clearance process. The FBI background process is a long-standing part of the process," she tells me. It's "designed to help look at whether you have any issues that could made you blackmailable. That's part of it. For people who are seeking access to our most sensitive information, there are additional national security assessments. The investigators are looking at: do you have stability, trustworthiness, reliability, discretion. Do you have good character and judgment, honesty, and unquestionable loyalty to the United States to ensure that people who get positions of trust, with access to our most sensitive information, have unquestioned loyalty to the United States and not a foreign power."

Graves argues that "many" of Trump's nominees "have serious deficits in more than one of those categories." She also tells me that Trump's own "track record would raise serious concerns about his trustworthiness, his reliability, about his fitness for having access to information."

As to Trump's plans to force the U.S. Senate into recess, so that he may avoid the Constitution's mandate for "advice and consent" on top-level appoints, she describes the scheme as "un-American, unconstitutional, and unprecedented."

Tune in for much more insight from Graves on all of this on today's program.

FINALLY TODAY... A few more items related to the U.S. House Ethics Committee's ongoing deliberations into whether to release their report on the alleged paid sex trafficking by Gaetz of at least two different 17-year old girls. And then Desi Doyen joins us for details on Trump's newly announced nomination of fracking company CEO and climate change denier Chris Wright as the next chief of the Dept. of Energy. She also has some thoughts on Trump's Interior Dept. nominee, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, and on former Rep. Lee Zeldin who has been nominated to head the EPA, and how ALL of those men spell very bad news for our world's quickly-worsening climate crisis...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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]]> https://bradblog.com/?feed=rss2&p=15234 https://bradblog.com/?p=15233 https://bradblog.com/?p=15233#comments Sun, 17 Nov 2024 14:35:54 +0000 Brad Friedman Toons https://bradblog.com/?p=15233

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DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF FOR POLICY...

DEPT. OF TRANSPORTATION...

(That one's not true. But you didn't know for sure, did ya?)

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]]> https://bradblog.com/?feed=rss2&p=15233 https://bradblog.com/?p=15232 https://bradblog.com/?p=15232#comments Fri, 15 Nov 2024 02:38:34 +0000 Brad Friedman ES&S Pennsylvania Georgia BRAD BLOG Media Appearance Wisconsin Paper Ballots Legislation Touch-Screen DREs/BMDs United Nations Accountability Michigan Nevada Voting System Standards Dominion Voting KPFK Donald Trump Climate change Extreme weather BradCast Kamala Harris Brad Raffensperger Sidney Powell Election 2024 Alex Jones Coffee County Recount 2024 Azerbaijan https://bradblog.com/?p=15232 Computer scientists, cybersecurity experts and voting systems experts are concerned following last week's election. One of them joins us to explain on today's BradCast. Also, some personal recollections today, for reasons you will learn if you haven't already, of rightwing conspiracy-monger Alex Jones. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

As our friends at the nonpartisan government watchdog Free Speech for People announced on Wednesday, "A group of computer security experts have written to Vice President Kamala Harris to alert her to the fact that voting systems were breached by Trump allies in 2021 and 2022 and to urge her to seek recounts in key states to ensure election verification." The well-respected experts are hoping she will use her standing as candidate for President to seek hand recounts of paper ballots, or at least smaller so-called Risk Limiting Audits, to assure the results reported from the November 5, 2024 election are accurate as per voter intent. The vast majority of results reported at this time, and prior to certification, are tabulated only by computers --- either correctly or incorrectly. It's impossible to know without a hand examination.

The scientists and security expert concerns, as they explain in their 5-page missive [PDF] to the Veep, spring from the fact that Donald Trump supporters, following the 2020 election, unlawfully breached proprietary voting systems in a number of states, then copied and distributed the software to an unknown number of people.

We have reported here in great detail on a number of those breaches over the past several years, including most intensively in Coffee County, Georgia. There, a number of Trump supporters unlawfully accessed the statewide voting systems beginning on January 7, 2021 --- the day after the attempted U.S. Capitol insurrection --- and, as one of the participants noted on a recorded phone call, "scanned all the equipment, imaged all the hard drives and scanned every single ballot." Several members of that effort, including Trump attorney Sidney Powell, were eventually charged with felony crimes as part of Fulton County's sweeping racketeering case filed against Trump and 18 co-conspirators.

As the security experts explain in their letter to Harris, "Possessing copies of the voting system software enables bad actors to install it on electronic devices and to create their own working replicas of the voting systems, probe them, and develop exploits. Skilled adversaries can decompile the software to get a version of the source code, study it for vulnerabilities, and could even develop malware designed to be installed with minimal physical access to the voting equipment by unskilled accomplices to manipulate the vote counts. Attacks could also be launched by compromising the vendors responsible for programming systems before elections, enabling large-scale distribution of malware."

Following the discovery of the Coffee County breach in Georgia, the state's voting system vendor, Dominion, issued security patches, which the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) strongly urged jurisdictions around the nation which use those same systems to apply immediately. GA's Sec. of State Brad Raffensperger, however, refused to do so before the 2024 election.

"In the light of the breaches we ask that you formally request hand recounts in at least the states of Michigan, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania," the security experts request in their letter, while clarifying for those who may try to confuse them with Trump's "Stop the Stealers" who falsely claimed fraud in the 2020 election: "We have no evidence that the outcomes of the elections in those states were actually compromised as a result of the security breaches, and we are not suggesting that they were. But binding risk-limiting audits (RLAs) or hand recounts should be routine for all elections, especially when the stakes are high and the results are close. We believe that, under the current circumstances when massive software breaches are known and documented, recounts are necessary and appropriate to remove all potential doubt and to set an example for security best practices in all elections."

They urge Harris to move quickly because, while post-election audits of varying quality are carried out in a number of key states, many will be conducted only after certification and after the window to seek recounts that could affect election results has closed.

We're joined today by one of the seven letter writers, Professor DUNCAN BUELL Ph.D., NCR Chair Emeritus in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of South Carolina. Buell has been studying and serving as an expert on computerized electronic voting and tabulation systems for decades now.

"It's crap software," Buell tells me bluntly about systems made by ES&S, the nation's largest vendor, whose software he has studied most closely. "We know that most of the ES&S system has been exported to the web and is available to any and all bad actors. We know for sure that the Dominion system has been exported and is available. And we know from studies of both systems that they fail to provide the kinds of security issues that would prevent bad things from happening," he says.

"Given what we know, that all of this horrible software has gone into the wild, the prudent election director will take absolutely every possible method to verify that the results are, in fact, correct." But, Buell explains, unless ballots are examined by hand, "we don't know that the results we are seeing are actually the results."

He describes the software in question --- as Georgia's Attorney General did prior to the revelation of the Coffee County breach --- as "the keys to the kingdom" and argues that it is "absolutely bananas" that the tabulation of ballots and programming of the software is not verified.

We cover much more in our conversation, including a number of large, if still-unexplained tabulation errors (that were luckily discovered during canvassing) in states like Pennsylvania and Michigan; questions about a reportedly, unusually large number of so-called "bullet ballots" featuring just one single vote in last week's election, but only in battleground states; and several ways to improve the systems in the future to allow more oversight of election results to the public.

ALSO TODAY....

• Rightwing conspiracy theorist Alex Jones' Infowars website, archives, equipment, studio and more have been obtained through auction by the beloved satirical website, The Onion. The purchase is part of a judge-ordered liquidation of Jones' assets following a hard-fought, nearly $1.5 billion judgement against him won by the families of victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, which Jones spent years decrying as a "hoax". I take the opportunity today to share a few of my own personal recollections of my run-ins with Jones in years past.

• And finally, Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report, as New York and New Jersey grapple with record drought and autumn wildfires, as climate advocates from around the globe seek solutions at the latest U.N. Climate Summit in the wake of the election of climate change denier Donald Trump, and his vows to roll back progress from the last four years...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

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]]> https://bradblog.com/?feed=rss2&p=15232 https://bradblog.com/?p=15231 https://bradblog.com/?p=15231#comments Thu, 14 Nov 2024 19:10:22 +0000 Desi Doyen New Jersey New York United Nations U.S. House Environment Republicans Green News Donald Trump Bolivia Oil Wind energy Solar energy Climate change Extreme weather U.K. Paris Agreement European Union Infrastructure Pollution wildfires Azerbaijan https://bradblog.com/?p=15231

Follow @GreenNewsReport...




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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: New York and New Jersey grapple with record drought and autumn wildfires; Republicans win U.S. House majority, and the power to reverse Biden climate action; PLUS: U.N. climate summit (COP29) kicks off with very high stakes... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Amid Earth’s heat records, scientists report another bump upward in annual carbon emissions; Cop29 could change the financial climate for the world’s wealthy polluters; Oil industry asks Trump to repeal major climate policies; Extreme weather cost $2 trillion globally over past decade, report finds; Dutch appeals court overturns landmark ruling against Shell Oil... PLUS: How will offshore wind fare under a second Trump term?... and much, MUCH more! ...

STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...

• Republicans win US House majority and the power to reverse Biden's climate action:
• Republicans pick new leaders as 2025 plans come into focus (E&E News):
  
  Chief among them is a budget reconciliation bill to extend the 2017 tax cuts while potentially gutting huge portions of the Democrats’ 2022 climate law to pay for it. Some Republicans are already lobbying their leaders to salvage portions of the Inflation Reduction Act, even though none of them voted for it. Others say the rush to repeal should be reconsidered.
• Who will lead House energy, environment committees (E&E News)
• With Republicans Claiming the Senate and Possibly the House, Congress Expected to Reverse Course on Climate (Inside Climate News)
• New York and New Jersey grapple with record drought and wildfires:
• Wildfires burn in New York and New Jersey as red flag warnings are triggered across Northeast (NBC News)
• VIDEO: Historic drought fuels blazes across Northeast as wildfires burn on both coasts (NBC News)
"Not only is the fire burning on top of the ground, it’s burning under the ground," the New Jersey Forest Fire Service chief said.
• New Jersey declares drought warning and urges residents to reduce water use (NBC News)
• What’s Behind New York Fires? Climate Change, Land Use and History (Bloomberg)
• As wildfires rage, NJ is now in a drought warning, Gov. Phil Murphy says. What it means (Bergen Record/MSN):
  
  Murphy thanked the New Jersey Forest Fire Service for its efforts, pointing out it has battled 537 fires this year so far, which is 500 more than during the same time period last year, or a roughly 1,300% increase. The work is not without danger, as became obvious on Saturday when New York firefighter Dariel Vasquez died while fighting the Jennings Creek wildfire.
• 2 face charges connected to wildfires burning in New York, New Jersey (AP)
• Amtrak service along parts of the Northeast corridor resumes after disruptions on 2 days (AP)
• Northeast faces dry conditions with wildfires across the region (NBC News)
• VIDEO: Gov. Phil Murphy and DEP Commissioner LaTourette, press conference on wildfire response (Gov. Phil Murphy/Twitter)
• COP29 U.N. climate talks: Money and financing in contentious focus:
• Live coverage of COP29 (Guardian)
• Live coverage of COP29 (BBC)
• How to Raise Trillions to Fight Climate Change, With or Without the U.S. (NY Times):
  
  Low-income countries need at least $1 trillion a year to manage climate change. Donald Trump’s victory just made that more difficult, but options exist.
• UN climate talks to focus on money to help poor nations cut carbon pollution (AP):
  
  "It's a game with high stakes," said Climate Analytics CEO Bill Hare, a physicist. "Right now the fate of the planet depends very much on what we’re able to pull off in the next five or 10 years."
• This year has been masterclass in human destruction, UN chief tells Cop29 (Guardian)
• VIDEO: Sec-Gen. Guterres: "Climate finance is not charity, it’s an investment" (Antonio Guterres/Twitter)
• The world isn't spending nearly enough to adapt to climate shocks (NY Times)
• U.S. Climate Envoy says climate fight continues, others urge Trump to stay in Paris Agreement:
• Podesta: 'Science is still science': US still committed to climate fight despite Trump's win, Podesta says at COP29 (Politico/MSN)
• Even Exxon’s CEO Doesn’t Want Trump to Pull Out of the Paris Climate Agreement (Gizmodo):
  
  "I don’t think the challenge or the need to address global emissions is going to go away," he said. "Anything that happens in the short term would just make the longer term that much more challenging."
• Israel to Trump: It would be ‘better’ to stay in the Paris Agreement (E&E News)
• Why Trump’s 2nd withdrawal from the Paris Agreement will be different (Politico)
• VIDEO: US Climate Official Says Record Oil Eases Shift to Clean Energy (Bloomberg):
  
  Record oil and gas production under President Joe Biden has enabled the US to smoothly transition toward cleaner energy and fight climate change without driving up prices, a top White House adviser said Wednesday.
• COP29 Azerbaijan hosts have serious conflicts of interest:
• Azerbaijan's COP29 Chief Exec Filmed Promoting Fossil Fuel Deals (BBC)
• VIDEO: Head of U.N. Climate Summit in Azerbaijan Caught on Tape Pushing Oil & Gas Deals (Democracy Now):
  
  The host country is also facing accusations that it is using the climate talks for business, after the head of the talks, Elnur Soltanov, was caught in a secret recording promoting oil and gas deals. That sting was organized by the group Global Witness, which put forward a fake investor. "In exchange for just the promise of sponsorship money, that got us to the heart of the COP29," says Lela Stanley, an investigator at Global Witness. "We need the U.N. to ban petro interests from sitting at the table, from influencing the COP."
• COP29 host Azerbaijan brands oil and gas 'gift from God' (Al Jazeera):
  
  President Aliyev accuses West of hypocrisy for criticising country's fossil-fuel dependence while buying its oil & gas.
• Azerbaijan accused of ramping up repression of critics ahead of hosting UN climate summit (AP)
• Positive developments out of COP29:
• An update on the COP29 Climate Change Conference (NPR):
  
  The U.K., Brazil and China are stepping up as climate leaders as the incoming Trump administration picks heads for key agencies who may increase U.S. climate pollution.
• Starmer: New UK target for 81% emissions cut by 2035 (BBC)
• COP29 climate talks: What finance deals have been announced? (Reuters/MSN)
• COP29 Negotiators Agree on Global Carbon Market Mechanism (Bloomberg):
  
  Proponents argue the new market will form the gold standard for emissions trading, unlocking billions in finance for emissions mitigation projects in the developing world. Buyers, mostly in wealthier countries, would be able to meet their climate goals by buying credits from projects that cut pollution.
• COP29: UN Approves Article 6.4, Launches Global Carbon Market (Carbon Herald)
• Amazon: Who should pay for its protection? (Deutsche Welle)

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

For a comprehensive roundup of daily environmental news you can trust, see the Society of Environmental Journalists' Daily Headlines page

• Amid Earth’s heat records, scientists report another bump upward in annual carbon emissions (AP)
• Cop29 could change the financial climate for the world’s wealthy polluters (Guardian)
• Oil Industry Asks Trump to Repeal Major Climate Policies (Inside Climate News)
• World on track for hottest year ever as carbon pollution hits record levels (Yale Climate Connections)
• Extreme weather cost $2 trillion globally over past decade, report finds (Guardian)
• Biden Admin backs King Cove Road through Izembek Wildlife Refuge (Anchorage Daily News)
• How will offshore wind fare under a second Trump term? (Canary Media)
• Dutch appeals court overturns landmark ruling against Shell Oil (AP)
• Who Will Care for Americans Left Behind by Climate Migration? (Pro Publica)
• America's Climate and Economy Are on the Ballot (The American Prospect)
• How to power your home through an outage without a gas generator (Washington Post)
• VIDEO: John Oliver on Trump's Project 2025: Blueprint for the Death of Democracy (This Is Not Cool blog)
• Is the Atlantic Overturning Circulation Approaching a Tipping Point? (The Oceanography Society)
• How Oil Companies Manipulate Journalists (Drilled)
• Abrupt reduction in shipping emission as an inadvertent geoengineering termination shock produces substantial radiative warming (Nature)
• How To Spot 5 Of The Fossil Fuel Industry's Biggest Disinformation Tactics (Guardian)
• The Oceans We Knew Are Already Gone (The Atlantic)
• Plug-in hybrids vs. electric cars: We did the math on which is better for you (Washington Post)
• How to electrify your life when you rent (The Verge)
• Complete Series: Farmers Under Attack for Supporting Clean Energy (This Is Not Cool blog)
• Feeling Overwhelmed About Going All-Electric at Home? Here's How to Get Started (Inside Climate News)
• Feeling Hopeless About the Climate? Try Our 30-Day Action Plan (The Revelator)
• Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration (Pro Publica)
• Exxon's Snake Oil: 100 years of deception (Columbia Journalism Review)
• Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Drawdown.org)

]]> https://bradblog.com/?feed=rss2&p=15231 https://bradblog.com/?p=15230 https://bradblog.com/?p=15230#comments Thu, 14 Nov 2024 02:57:52 +0000 Brad Friedman California Georgia BRAD BLOG Media Appearance New York Accountability U.S. House Dept. of Justice U.S. Senate Dept. of Defense Rudy Giuliani KPFK Donald Trump Election 2016 BradCast Merrick Garland Steve Bannon Tulsi Gabbard Election 2020 Matt Gaetz John Thune Mark Meadows E. Jean Carroll Election 2024 Fani Willis Alvin Bragg Elon Musk Jack Smith Vivek Ramaswamy Pete Hegseth https://bradblog.com/?p=15230 It's going to get much darker and more ridiculous, before it begins to get better. But it is not "The End", despite a suggestion of same here and there throughout today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among our coverage today...

U.S. House race updates from California where, this week so far, one seat has flipped from "red" to "blue", another that had been expected to turn "red" will likely stay in Dems hands (the seat formerly held by Democratic Rep. Katie Porter), and another longtime "red" seat (since 1980!) appears on the verge of flipping to Democrats. Even so, as of airtime, Republicans are now just one seat away from narrowly winning majority control of the lower chamber of Congress.

Donald Trump lost his first political battle with his upcoming Republican U.S. Senate Majority on Wednesday morning, as South Dakota Sen. John Thune, a Mitch McConnell deputy, was selected by the Caucus as its new Majority Leader. MAGA enemy McConnell is set to retire and Florida Sen. Rick Scott, loudly lobbied for by MAGA, was defeated in the contest to replace him.

Another wave of stooges, corporatists and/or unqualified buffoons were named for key Trump Admin roles since yesterday's program. And the latest wave includes some real humdingers!...

• 'The Ultimate Corruption': Richest-man-in-the-world and major government contractor Elon Musk and failed GOP Presidential nominee Vivek Ramaswamy were named to head up the "Dept. of Government Efficiency" (DOGE! Get it?), even though, as AP notes there is no such government agency.
• 'Who the f--k is this guy?’: Trump's nomination of Fox "News" weekend host and former National Guard major Pete Hegseth's nomination for Defense Secretary --- to oversee an $800 billion annual budget and nearly three million troops and civilian employees --- stuns the military world.
• A Gift for Vlad: With no experience at all in the field, jilted Democratic Congresswoman/Presidential nominee turned Republican Putin propagandist and Trump fan Tulsi Gabbard is named to be the next Director of National Intelligence.
• 'Uniquely Awful': Florida Congressman and MAGA insurrection supporter Matt Gaetz, long investigated for the alleged sex trafficking of minors, is named to be Trump's U.S. Attorney General.

Then, we're joined by longtime national security and accountability journalist MARCY WHEELER of Emptywheel, to walk through the post-election status of the four different criminal felony indictments (and 34 convictions) of the incoming President of the United States.

Donald Trump's cases at the federal level --- for stealing national security documents and inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Government as one of several failed attempts to steal the 2020 election --- will now, most likely, just go away. Though Special Counsel Jack Smith is reportedly putting together final reports in those cases for potential release in advance of Trump taking office.

"The cases are going to end, but I suspect Jack Smith was already thinking about what he would do if Trump won, and the way in which to leave the best record available," Wheeler tells me, suggesting that he may do it soon enough that there could be public hearings on those indictments in the U.S. Senate, while Dems are still in majority control.

The two cases at the state level --- in New York, where he was convicted on 34 felony counts of fraud related to hush-money payments to help him win the 2016 election, and in Georgia, for trying to steal the 2020 election --- are a bit more complicated. It's less clear what will happen next in both cases, as sentencing is currently pending in NY and appeals are continue in GA where Trump's 18 co-conspirators, including his disgraced lawyer Rudy Giuliani and former Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, may be tried without him.

We also discuss what happens to Trump's civil verdicts where he was found liable for $355 million for fraud in New York, and for $90 million in the E. Jean Carroll sexual assault case.

Wheeler also discusses the pending fraud charges against Trump buddy Steve Bannon; the outrageous nomination of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General ("All of these Jan 6ers are going to be released, probably including the seditionists."); whether A.G. Merrick Garland could have done anything to bring any case against Trump to a trial, much less a conclusion, before this year's election; and how "the Republican Party, as a whole, has decided that they do not believe in rule of law anymore"...

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